Romanian Orphan Studies:institutionalisation Flashcards
Intro
Research on maternal deprivation has turned to orphan studies as a means of studying the effects of deprivation on emotional and intellectual development. A tragic opportunity to look at the effects of institutional care and the consequent institutionalisation arose in Romania in the 1990s. Former President Nicolai Ceaucescu required Romanian women to have five children. Many Romanian parents could not afford to keep their children and the children ended up in huge orphanages in very poor conditions. After the 1989 Romanian revolution many of the children were adopted, some by British parents.
Ritter et als research
Procedure -Michael Rutter and colleagues (2011) have followed a group of 165 Romanian Profens for many years as part of the English and Romanian adoptee (ERA) study The orphan had been adopted by families in the UK. The aim of the ERA has been to investigate the extent to which good care could make up for poor early experiences in institutions. Physical, cognitive and emotional development has been assessed at ages 4, 6, 11, 15 and 22-25 years. A group o 52 children from the UK adopted around the same time have served as a control group.
Findings -When the children first arrived in the UK, half the adoptees showed signs of delayed intellectual development and the majority were severely undernourished. At age 11 the adopted children showed differential rates of recovery that were related to their age of adoption. The mean IQ of those children adopted before the age of six months was 102, compared with 86 for those adopted between six months and two years and 77 for those adopted after two years. These differences remained at age 16 (Beckett et al. 2010). ADHD was more common in 15- and 22-25-year-old samples (Kennedy et al. 2016).
In terms of attachment, there appeared to be a difference in outcome related to whether adoption took place before or after six months. Those children adopted after they were six months showed signs of a particular attachment style called disinhibited attachment. Symptoms include attention-seeking, clinginess and social behaviour directed indiscriminately towards all adults, both familiar and unfamiliar.
in contrast those children adopted before the age of six months rarely displayed disinhibited attachment.
Zeanah et als research
Procedure -Charles Zeanah et al. (2005) conducted the Bucharest early intervention (BEl) project, assessing attachment in 95 Romanian children aged 12-31 months who had spent most of their lives in institutional care (90% on average). They were compared to a control group of 50 children who had never lived in an institution. Their attachment type was measured using the Strange Situation. In addition carers were asked about unusual social behaviour including clingy, attention-seeking behaviour directed inappropriately at all adults (a measure of disinhibited attachment).
Findings -The researchers found that 74% of the control group were classed as securely attached in the Strange Situation. However, only 19% of the institutional group were securely attached. In contrast, the description of disinhibited attachment applied to 44% of institutionalised children as opposed to less than 20% of the controls.
Effects of institutionalisation
Disinhibited attachment -Children who have spent their early lives in an institution often show signs of disinhibited attachment, being equally friendly and affectionate towards familiar people and strangers. This is highly unusual behaviour - remember that most children in their second year show stranger anxiety.
Rutter (2006) has explained disinhibited attachment as an adaptation to living with multiple caregivers during the sensitive period for attachment formation (see Shaffer’s stages of attachment, page 76 and Bowly’s critical period for attachment, page 84). In poor quality institutions, like those in Romania, a child might have 50 carers but doesn’t spend enough time with any one of them to be able to form a secure attachment.
Intellectual disability -In Rutter’s study most children showed signs of intellectual disability when they arrived in Britain. However, most of those adopted before they were si months old caught up with the control group by age four.
It appears that, like emotional development, damage to intellectual development as a result ofinstitutionalisation can be recovered provided adoption takes place before the aged six months - the age at which attachments form.
Strength-Real-world application
One strength of the Romanian orphanage studies is their application to improve conditions for children growing up outside their family home.
Studying the Romanian orphans has improved psychologists’ understanding of the effects of early institutional care and how to prevent the worst of these effects (Langton 2006). This has led to improvements in the conditions experienced by looked -after children, i.e. children growing up in the care system. For example children’s homes now avoid having large numbers of caregivers for each child.
Instead the children tend to have one or two key workers’ who play a central role in their emotional care. Also institutional care is now seen as an undesirable option for looked-after children. Considerable effort is made to accommodate such children in foster care or to have them adopted instead.
This means that children in institutional care have a chance to develop normal attachments and disinhibited attachment is avoided.
Strength- fewer confounding variables
Another strength of the Romanian studies is the lack of confounding variables.
There were many orphan studies before the Romanian orphans became available to study (e.g. orphans studied during the Second World War). Many of the children studied in orphanages had experienced varying degrees of trauma, and it is difficult to disentangle the effects of neglect, physical abuse and bereavement from those of institutional care. However the children from Romanian orphanages had, in the main, been handed over by loving parents who could not afford to keep them.
This means that results were much less likely to be confounded by other negative early experiences (higher internal validity).
Counterpoint -On the other hand, studying children from Romanian orphanages might have introduced different confounding variables. The quality of care in these institutions was remarkably poor, with children receiving very little intellectual stimulation or comfort.
This means that the harmful effects seen in studies of Romanian orphans may represent the effects of poor institutional care rather than institutional care per se.
Limitation-lack of adult data
One limitation of the Romanian orphanage studies is the current lack of data on adult development.
The latest data from the ERA Study looked at the children in their early- to mid-
205. This means that we do not currently have data to answer some of the most interesting research questions about the long-term effects of early institutional care.
These research questions include the lifetime prevalence of mental health problems and participants’ success in forming and maintaining adult romantic and parental relationships. It will take a long time to gather this data because of the longitudinal design of the study, i.e. the same participants are followed over a long period.
This means it will be some time before we know more completely what the long-term effects are for the Romanian orphans. It is possible that late-adopted children may ‘catch up.
